
Exercising while sick isn’t fun. I felt a little light headed afterward actually, and had to reduce the speed of that treadmill just a smidge. But I still did it! That’s three full weeks of going to the gym now, and I’ve managed to drop almost 3 kg so far (unfortunately my bathroom scale is in lbs… so I’ll have to say 6lbs). I’m not going to let a little cold get in my way of continuing to reach for my target. I, of course, managed another Pimsleur session at the same time. I also managed to bring my katakana memorization up a notch.
Pimsleur Level 1, Unit 11
This class is mostly about asking when you want to do something. Want to eat dinner at my place tonight? That sort of thing.
くりかえしてください | 繰り返してください | please repeat |
きいてください | 聞いてください | listen to me |
きいてくりかえしてください | 聞いて繰り返してください | please listen, and then repeat. |
じゃあ | Well then… | |
きょう | 今日 | today (Covered Already in Human Japanese Ch:10) |
あした | 明日 | tomorrow (Covered Already in Human Japanese Ch:10) |
こんばん | 今晩 | this evening |
あしたのばん | 明日の晩 | tomorrow evening |
ばんごはん | 晩御飯 | dinner (evening dinner) (Covered Already when I was studying on Jan 27th) |
コーヒー | coffee |
Something that was interesting in the teaching style of this lesson, is that the phrases きいてください and くりかえしてください were both introduced without being introduced. The audio was just slammed into my ear, and it actually threw me off quite a bit. It was jarring to have phrases spoken, and I wasn’t able to have it repeated immediately so I could try to decypher it. Apparently they’re going to do more of that as time goes on.
I’ve got 20 more lessons to go to finish up Level 1, so at the rate I’m going that might be another 7 weeks.
Phrases
– なんじですか。 – what time is it?
– いまなんじですか。 – what time is it, now?
– さんじにのみたいです。 – at 3 o’clock I want to eat.
– いえいまのみたくありません。 – no, I don’t want to drink right now.
– いつのみますか。 – when would you like to eat?
– じゃあしちじに。 – well then, seven o’clock?
– こんばんすずきさんとたべたいです。 – This evening, I’d like to eat with Suzuki-san.
– ばんごはんをたべませんか。 – Won’t you eat dinner?
– こんばんじゅうじにばんごはんをたべます。 – I’m going to have dinner at 10PM
– あしたのばんたなかさんとばんごはんをたべます。 – tomorrow night, I want to have dinner with Tanaka-san.
– わたしとばんごはんをたべませんか。 – Won’t you have dinner with me?
– ありがとうございますでもきょうわちょっと。 – thank you, but today is a bit…
– こんばんのみませんか。 – won’t you have a drink this evening?
– こんばんあにをしますか。 – what are you doing this evening?
– コーヒーをのみます。 – I will drink coffee.
– じゃあまたあした。 – See you tomorrow.
Human Japanese Chapter 11/12
Chapter 11 was simply a page on Japanese bathing habits.
Chapter 12 introduces more vocabulary:
いってきます | 行ってきます | I’m leaving/going. It means literally “I’ll go and come back” |
いってらっしゃい | take care/see you when you get home! It means literally “Go and come back”. It’s the equivalent of “See you after work” or “Have a good day” | |
ただいま | I’m home! It literally means “right now”. | |
おかえりなさい | お帰りなさい | welcome home! It’s literally the polite command to come home, but means more along the lines of Welcome Home. It’s also often shortened to just おかいり |
おやすみなさい | good night! Often shortened to just おやすみ it’s how people say good night. It can also be used to say goodbye late at night. | |
すみません | I’m sorry | |
しつれいします | 失礼します | Excuse me. It literally means “I will commit a rudeness” and is similar to excuse me as a preface to doing something rude. |
さよなら | Good bye. Although well known, it’s not used very often. It has a heavy, dramatic feel to it and so isn’t used if you expect to see the person again soon. | |
では | “Well…”, as in “Well… see you tonight.” ではこんばんまたね、さようなら。It’s used to imply it’s time to go the same as how someone might say “Well…” in English. | |
じゃまた | see you later. A relaxed, informal way to say bye to friends. “Mata” means “again”. | |
またね | see you later | |
じゃあね | see ya |
and the lesson ends with some more katakana:
マ – 2 strokes – it’s easy to remember this one as a triangular flag on a stick (just imagine the line extending the rest of the way up)
ミ – 3 strokes – another way to say the number 3 is mittsu. Just as ni is two lines, mi is three. They’re also slightly angled downward.
ム – 2 strokes – This one might be like the lid opening on a box. or something? It’s triangular shaped.
メ – 2 strokes – this is an extremely abbreviated version of it’s hiragana version: め. It shouldn’t look like an x
モ – 3 strokes – It’s a lot like it’s cousin too. The stroke order is different though, as in Hiragana, the vertical line goes first. も
Yay! I practiced the katakana today for a bit with Obenkyo, and it seems to have made a difference. During the review here, テ was the only one that threw me off. Memorizing these won’t be so bad after all 🙂
ヤ – 2 strokes – This is very similar to や, but it’s more angular and missing a stroke.
ユ – 3 strokes – the vertical portion of the first stroke should veer slightly left, never to the right.
ヨ – 3 strokes – it’s a backward E, The lower arms are drawn left to right.
these of course don’t use ten-ten, but they work just as their hiragana counterparts to make extended sounds such as kya キャ, shu シュ, and cho チョ. And are very easy to take in.